Since long time ago, agricultural producers have looked for technical options to improve the application of phytosanitary products. The main difficulty has been to achieve efficiency, in order for the applied product to reach its target and fully cover it. The achievement of such efficiency directly affects the quality of fruits or crops as well as the production costs and, therefore, the expected profitability of such production.
The electrostatic concept consists of the application of an aqueous solution, which drop is micronized and turned into soft mist. This microdrop is driven by a very efficient carrier that is the air, which micronizes the drop that receives a strong positive electric charge upon getting out from the nozzle, fact that generates the polarity change of the solution since, due to the repulsion of charges, positive charges of the solution are repelled back, allowing only microdrops with negative charge to pass. At the same time, the cloud with negative drops creates a temporary unbalance of charges on the target of the application because its negative charges are repulsed and go to earth, leaving the target with momentary positive charge. In this way and due to the attraction of charges the negative microdrops are strongly attracted by the target, which is fully embraced and covered with this mist. This application technology manages to make the plant attract the products in the same manner as a magnet attracts pieces of metals. The microdrops are stuck to the target attracted by charge differences, thus reducing the losses due to leakage and deviation caused by the wind, which, in turn, results in an extraordinary cover and in a superior effect of the applied products. This permits a significant reduction in the quantity of chemical products to be applied per hectare due to the efficiency achieved and, therefore, it implies a strong reduction of the negative impact on the environment resulting from the use of pesticides. To sum up, the producer grows better and stronger fruit with better color, at lower costs and generating minimum damages to the environment.
In the case of the application with electrostatic effects, there is a drop micronization to sizes that are 800 to 1000 times smaller than the average of drops in a traditional application. The fact that each drop has the same static charge implies that the drops travel towards the target without getting together (equal charges repel each other) looking for a place to settle in an extremely uniform way. Only after attaching to the positive charge plant's surface, they lose their charge and get stuck to the plant without leaking. The electrostatic application coats the surface through a thin layer of microdrops well distributed on both sides of the leaves as opposed to conventional applications with variable drop size which get uneven coating of the plant, and surfaces that not face the application do not receive the product.
This technology has been used to carry out different activities for several decades. It has been widely used in painting, especially in the automotive industry where an extremely uniform layer is applied to print a distinctive touch on their valuable products. A few decades ago, the agricultural industry adopted this technology for spraying, which meant a great contribution. With these devices an excellent “enveloping effect” is obtained, which means that the sprayed product wraps and covers 100% of the plant. Each application of agrochemical product will cover the whole surface of the leaves, branches and fruits.
The electrostatic technology used in the agricultural industry revolutionizes the concepts of phytosanitary handling of orchards and crops, obtaining efficiencies in covering the foliage and in the deposit of products (meaning by deposit the amount of product left on the plant), that can only be reached through the use of this technology, which may increase up to five times the efficiency reached with conventional applications.
However, in spite of its important advantages, the electrostatic technology had been efficiently used only on a small portion of worldwide crops, because the volumes of water that had managed to use are significantly lower than the volumes required by most of them.
The low volume of water used by pre-existing electrostatic technology results from the fact that the technology used was adapted from technology used in other industries and not obtained due to the development of new technologies specifically made for the agricultural industry.
We can point out that currently the existing electrostatic technology has the following defects that are really important: it delivers a low electrostatic charge; therefore, low flows must be used in each nozzle. This means that in order to acceptably wet the surface it must be applied at slow speed. Lower charge means also lower electrostatic attraction. The issues mentioned above make the capacity of these devices to be insufficient to supply what is required by a great number of crops.
What was mentioned above results from the fact that up to this date there was no technology that could adequately charge high volumes of water. Such defect can be cured by the technology described herein.
This technology may be used in any kind of crops. From fruit orchards to important crops such as wheat, maize, field marigold and other crops that currently have not been handled efficiently with the new technologies.
There are many patents related to the use of the electrostatic technology for agricultural purposes but none of them refers to any invent with the characteristics and purposes of the equipment subject matter of this innovation. Some of such patents are the following:    U.S. Pat. No. 4,470,550—Electrostatic spraying process and apparatus—Sep. 11, 1984    U.S. Pat. No. 4,579,279—Electrostatic sprayers—Apr. 1, 1986    U.S. Pat. No. 6,354,522—Electrostatic sprayer—Mar. 12, 2002    U.S. Pat. No. 6,311,903—Hand-held electrostatic sprayer apparatus—Nov. 6, 2001    U.S. Pat. No. 4,579,279—Electrostatic sprayers—Apr. 1, 1986    U.S. Pat. No. 4,586,657—Malfunction detector for electrostatic spraying apparatus—May 6, 1986    U.S. Pat. No. 5,631,802—Control ring for input spray in electrostatic spray system—May 20, 1997    U.S. Pat. No. 7,360,724—Electrostatic spray nozzle with internal and external electrodes—Apr. 22, 2008    U.S. Pat. No. 6,138,922—Electrostatic spray module—Oct. 31, 2000    U.S. Pat. No. 6,682,004—Electrostatic spray device—Jan. 27, 2004    U.S. Pat. No. 7,150,412—Method and apparatus for electrostatic spray—Dec. 19, 2006    U.S. Pat. No. 4,398,672—Electrostatic spraying—Aug. 16, 1983    U.S. Pat. No. 5,314,123—Electrostatic spraying—May 24, 1994    U.S. Pat. No. 7,059,543—Liquid sprayers—Jun. 13, 2006    U.S. Pat. No. 5,172,861—Agricultural sprayer—Dec. 22, 1992    U.S. Pat. No. 4,613,075—Electrostatic spraying—Sep. 23, 1986    U.S. Pat. No. 4,664,315—Electrostatic spray nozzle—May 12, 1987    U.S. Pat. No. 5,485,956—Agricultural sprayer—Jan. 23, 1996
Likewise, in Chile there is only one patent related to the use of electrostatic applications in agriculture, but unlike our equipment, it is a device to specifically treat harvested fruit, this corresponds to the Request: 00055-2004, submitted on Jan. 15, 2004 and published in the Official Gazette on Dec. 24, 2004.